MPs from Bundelkhand fail to get ministerial berths

Lucknow: Unlike eastern Uttar Pradesh which bagged a lion’s share of ministerial berths in the Union Council of Ministers, MPs from Bundelkhand region of the state could not make it to the list of ministers. All the four parliamentary constituencies in Bundelkhand region of the state gave their electoral verdict in favour of the BJP.

In Banda, BJP’s RK Singh Patel defeated SP’s Shyama Charan Gupta by a margin of over 58,000 votes, while in Hamirpur, it was Kunwar Pushpendra Singh Chandel of the BJP who emerged victorious defeating his nearest rival Dilip Kumar Singh of the BSP by more than 2.48 lakh votes. Jhansi witnessed Anurag Sharma of the BJP winning by a margin of over 3.65 lakh votes.

In Jalaun, it was Bhanu Pratap Singh Verma of the BJP who defeated Ajay Singh (Pankaj) of the BSP by over 1.58 lakh votes. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, BJP stalwart Uma Bharti, who won from Jhansi, was made a Cabinet minister.

Bundelkhand is a hilly region spread over Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Seven districts in Uttar Pradesh — Banda, Mahoba, Hamirpur, Lalitpur, Jhansi, Jalaun and Chitrakoot — and eight districts in Madhya Pradesh fall under this region.

The NDA’s second term in office saw eastern Uttar Pradesh bagging the lion’s share of the ministerial berths with Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself leading the pack.

Modi won from Varanasi while Rajnath Singh, a senior minister who joined the prime minister’s team as number two in the Union Cabinet, represents Lucknow in the Lok Sabha.

UP BJP chief Mahendra Nath Pandey, who was re-elected from Chandauli, also in eastern UP, joined Modi’s team at the Centre as well. Smriti Irani who won from Amethi is also a part of Modi 2.0. Thursday’s government formation saw UP, which elects the maximum number of 80 MPs, getting 10 representatives in the government.

Apart from Prime Minister Modi, there are four Cabinet ministers (from UP) — Rajnath Singh, Smriti Irani, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Mahendra Nath Pandey.

Two are MoS (independent charge) — Santosh Gangwar and Hardeep Singh Puri, a Rajya Sabha member from the state. Others are MoS — Gen (retd) V K Singh, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti and Sanjeev Balyan.

Those who could not make it this time are Maneka Gandhi, who is likely to become the Pro-tem Speaker, Mahesh Sharma, Shiv Pratap Shukla and Satyapal Singh.

Anupriya Patel, whose Apna Dal (Sonelal) bagged two seats to takle NDA’s tally to 64 in the state was conspicuous by her absence in the list of ministers this time, though she was part of the previous government.

Some other faces of the last government who failed to make it are Manoj Sinha who lost from Ghazipur, Uma Bharti and Kalraj Mishra who did not contest. Krishna Raj was not given a ticket.